YIDIY: Dewayne Carel & His Fallout Rig

We just recently concluded our Fallout 4 Radiation Check Contest where the winners will get to take home tons of Fallout 4 swag. However, the ultimate prize - the incredible Fallout themed modded PC pictured above - goes only to the lucky person in first place.

Created by Dewayne Carel of Modders Inc., it's not only capable of playing Fallout 4 but it looks like it came right out of the game itself. We last saw Dewayne when he stopped by GeForce Garage to give us some tips on how to paint your case. We caught up with him to get some details on the rig, what techniques he used to make it look so awesome and what brilliant idea he's working on next. Thumbs Up!

Fallout 4

Tell us a little about the background of this rig?

The mod was originally built in 2013 for the Modders-Inc. staff vs staff contest the we do each year. Part of the challenge is that we only get a few weeks to complete the case mods and have a budget of only $250. I believe I came really close to the spending limit as I had to purchase a molded PIP Boy and some analog gauges. When we're done we show them off at our booth during the US Case Modding Championship case mod contest that we host at QuakeCon.

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The theme we picked that year was any game created by either id or Bethesda. After looking at the listing of games, Fallout stood about to me as it had a look that I have not created before for a case mod. Believe it or not I had never played any of the Fallout games when I picked it as the theme. I knew I had to add items to the case that people would recognized from the game so I got the game and started to play it, thus the case was born.

What have you done with it since then?

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Let's see, it has been shown at the Thermaltake suite at CES, QuakeCon twice, featured in a video by Tek Syndicate and other websites, and featured on countless websites over the past two years. The last show that it was at was the 2015 Intel IDF conference on the main stage during the gaming session.

What upgrades have you done to make it ready for Fallout 4?

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To bring the hardware up to today's standard I replaced most of the hardware to make it Fallout 4 ready. This included a 500GB Crucial SSD, 16GB of Kingston Hyper-X DDR4 RAM, Gigabyte GA-Z170X motherboard, Intel i5-6600K CPU, and of course Fallout 4 Edition GeForce GTX 970 video card from EVGA. This gives the Fallout mod more than enough power to play the Fallout 4 game.

Speak about all the different design elements that tie it back to the Fallout franchise

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I wanted the case to look like it really was from the game and not just a representation of the Fallout world. I wanted to make sure that when people saw and touched the case - and they did that a lot- that the uneven paint, dirt, switches, dials, and accessories had the right feel and looked like it should be there. The side case window was a no brainer as I turned it into the terminal that you have to hack into from the game. I used some of the actual code that is displayed on the terminal screen in the game along with some other stuff that the winner of the case will see.

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The idea was that the PC was back in the vault or wherever you where staying and when you went back there your habit was to take the bottle caps out of your pockets and then removed the PIP Boy and placed them on top of your PC. The Thermaltake Urban S41 was the case used while the Thermaltake keyboard, mouse and headphones had to be part of the mod as you need each of those to have functional PC. Of course those that to be painted the same as the case to help tie the whole look together.

What modding techniques/steps did you use to get it to look this awesome?

The chipped paint and rust techniques was something I had to learn to do this case which gave it the realistic look/feel I wanted. Layers of different color browns and tans where slackly applied all over the case. Hairspray was applied to the areas where I wanted the paint to come off at, then I applied the machine grey top coat and let it all dry. When you take water and apply it where the hairspray was added it will dissolve the hairspray and allow you rub and scratch off the top coat revealing the browns and tans making it look like the exposed metal had become rusted. Another techniques that is easy to do was creating the dust effect. Again two different colors of brown where used and sprayed into the air and let it fall naturally, like dust or dirt, onto the items.

Why do you enjoy modding so much? Tell us a little about Modders Inc.

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I have been asked that question many time and I pretty much answer the same way each time... I tell people that it is a way of self expression. I have always had some artistic abilities and when I got in computers I found that I could pass on that fun into PC modding. With case modding you get to show something about your personality and stuff you like. This is the reason Modders-Inc.com was created. We wanted to help people learning about PC case modding and to show them that you do not need to spend a lot of money to create something special and to have fun with. The Modders-Inc team is made up of some of the best modders and hardware product reviewer to help you pick the right hardware for your PC and how to make it look the way you want it too.

Are you sad to see your baby go?

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Sad... yes. Truthfully I have never gotten attached to any case mod I have done and it has always been easy to send them off to a new home, but this one found a place in my heart. I think because I mostly done this mod for myself and the Modders-Inc website. But instead of being stingy and holding on to it I thought it would be best to allow someone else enjoy the Fallout mod (please send me a picture with you with the case) and have fun playing Fallout on a Fallout case mod.

What’s next on the plate for you?

I have a few things on my plate that I want to do such as making sure that Modders-Inc grows in the right direction for case modders and hardware enthusiast. Maybe someday create a ModCon where case modders, game modders, and fans get together for a big ass LAN. On a more personal goal for modding there has been this project that I need to finish up that I start A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...